


They always land on their feet

by Joan_of_Gender



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Cats, Domesticity, Established Relationship, Fluff, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, eternity angst, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-16 19:00:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19324159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joan_of_Gender/pseuds/Joan_of_Gender
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley get cats





	They always land on their feet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gingerhobbit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gingerhobbit/gifts).



> Song that inspired this: https://youtu.be/fm-q0ELuk1A  
> The poems are Endymion and In memoriam.

“And we’re getting our next order in tomorrow! There’s one new release, Norse Mythology, that I simply can’t wait to read myself.”

Sitting on the floor, looking up at the gleaming, joyful, animated face of his angel, Crowley was thinking about what he would have given throughout the full 6000 years of history to be here. Aziraphale was leaning forward from his perch on the sofa, full of easy enthusiasm. It lit him up.

Crowley rested his head against the angel’s knee and nuzzled at him lazily with his cheek. “Tell me about it, Angel.”

“Well, I’ll read it to you, if you like. When it arrives.”

“Mmm. I’d like that.”

Aziraphale ran his fingers through Crowley’s hair. He was growing it out again and it was currently an awkward length, no longer short, but not quite full and flowing yet either. Aziraphale loved it. This was an entirely new kind of intimacy: to see the demon, who had always been so carefully dressed and groomed, now in his own comfortable scruffiness. He still looked exquisite, of course, he simply wasn’t trying so hard. There was no need to.

Crowley sighed contentedly as Aziraphale’s fingers wandered across his scalp. He thought he could feel his angel’s eyes meandering too over him. It might have just been his imagination, but it seemed to him that the angel’s gaze had the same golden, warming quality as sunlight.

He thought about how time seemed to have slowed down for him recently. He was experiencing it completely differently. These lingering moments, this sense of the stretching present, it was entirely new. He thought maybe it was because Aziraphale did time more slowly than he did. Crowley’s whole life had been a dash between their meetings, and perhaps a handful of other memorable moments. When the angel had been absent, there were whole decades, he realised, that had flashed past in a hurry towards his next glimpse of those shining eyes. But Aziraphale seemed to take the world at a leisurely pace, dawdling in backstreet coffee shops, strolling in the sunlight, savouring the moment like a delicate cuisine.

Perhaps angels were less agitated by the prospect of eternity.

Only now, Crowley was learning to slow down. Over the last year, he’d never been out of Aziraphale’s presence longer than twenty-four hours, and his sense of time had shifted.

“Comfortable, my dear?” asked Aziraphale. Their silence wasn’t awkward, but he wanted to make sure.

“You’re the best thing about eternity,” Crowley replied. He corrected himself: “The only good thing.”

Aziraphale let his hand rest, still, on the demon’s cheek a minute. “I love you,” he said simply.

“Angel,” Crowley continued, “does eternity ever scare you?”

“Not officially.” The angel paused, frowning. “My dear?” he asked.

Crowley lifted himself up from the floor to sit beside Aziraphale on the sofa. He looked seriously at him. “Yes, Angel?”

“You’re not getting bored of me, are you?”

Crowley’s eyes went wide. “How on earth could I?”

“All this talk of eternity…” Aziraphale fidgeted with the button on the cuff of his shirt. “Sometimes I worry that forever… I mean, we’ve hardly even begun with it yet…and you might…”

Crowley hushed him with a kiss. It is very slow and soft, and Aziraphale let it linger on his palette with the delicate care of a wine connoisseur. Then they parted, only just, and Crowley smiled: “Not bored. Not a bit. How long did you say forever was? I’m going to need a whole forever just for this.”

“But you were worried…”

“Not worried, Angel.” He stretched himself out, sprawling his gangly limbs. “But I do wonder when we should… you know, take the next steps. When you have forever, how soon is too soon?”

“What counts as next steps?”

“Oh,” Crowley waved his hand vaguely. “I have no idea.”

 

***

 

“Come and help me with this?” Aziraphale prodded helplessly at the trackpad on Crowley’s laptop. His cheeks were pink and he seemed exasperated.

“What are you trying to do, Angel?” Crowley smiled at him for approval before sliding onto his lap. Aziraphale rested his chin on Crowley’s shoulder and they looked at the screen together. It was an estate agent’s website.

“I was thinking about what you said and… what do you think?”

“Oh, Angel.” Crowley twisted round and nibbled his ear affectionately.

“That’s not an answer,” said Aziraphale, pleased.

“Thank you, but… wouldn’t you miss it here? The bookshop?”

Aziraphale glanced around. “We’d take the books, of course. But the bookshop was mine first. I want a place that’s entirely ours.”

Crowley looked at the houses on the screen. “Beautiful part of the country. Not far to Brighton. It’d be quiet though. Just us two.”

“Exactly,” said Aziraphale. He put a hand on the demon’s knee. “I want to be alone with you.” Why was he finding this so difficult to grasp? “To enjoy being together, this, falling in love –.”

The demon twitched nervously and shook away his hand. “Do you think you could pick a different metaphor?”

“Sorry,” said Aziraphale gently. Crowley stood up, kissed the angel lightly on the head to let him know he wasn’t in trouble, and wandered away into the kitchen.

Aziraphale let Crowley have a few moments to himself while he scrolled through postcard-perfect pictures of stone cottages on luscious green hills backlit by sunset. After a suitable while, he caught up with the demon in the kitchen. Crowley was standing at the sink, scrubbing pots by hand. The sink was thick with bubbles, and steam was rising from the running tap. He was staring out of the window which looked onto the tiny square of concrete that passed for a garden in Soho. Nothing grew out there unless you didn’t want it to. (Crowley had made the most of the michaelmas daisies that grew through cracks in the bricks. He had cultivated a gentle mutual hatred, remarking regularly that they were nothing more than weeds and that their purple was hard on the eyes. Now they grew vibrantly out of sheer spite for him.)

Aziraphale stood behind him and placed a hand on his neck, his thumb stroking at the spot between his shoulder blades where his currently invisible wings should begin.

“Sorry if I was a little… fast… Maybe one day?”

“It would be nice,” Crowley began. “Lovely, in fact. I… Sorry for sulking.”

“No, dear boy, I should have been more careful.”

The silence lapped at both of them for a moment, around the thought of the Fall. Eventually Crowley spoke.

“It’s not something I regret anymore.” He placed a soap-sudded hand on Aziraphale’s cheek and kissed him. “It’s not like I haven’t landed on my feet.”

“I hope so. You always seem to do that,” Aziraphale mumbled.

“Nah, that’s cats.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“It’s cats that always land on their feet,” Crowley said. “Snakes don’t have any.”

“They don’t,” agreed Aziraphale absent-mindedly. “I say, dear boy…”

“Yes?”

“Maybe we should do that instead?”

Crowley looked at him, fondly amused. “Get a cat? Ooh, now things are getting serious.”

 

***

 

The rescue centre was a sad kind of building. Big empty rooms and rainy grey concrete. The cats were mewling. Aziraphale felt a distinct lack of love in the air.

Crowley turned worried amber eyes on him. “Angel, we’ve got to get somebody out of here.”

Aziraphale squeezed his hand in agreement, pleased by his lover’s endless compassion for the world beyond him. The demon liked to pretend it wasn’t there, but Aziraphale could always see it, and it was nice when it broke the surface of his nonchalance.

They walked down the corridors until Aziraphale turned abruptly aside. He had noticed a cat watching him intently from a corner. Her coat was a sleek, slender, glossy black and she was watching him through cautious heterochrome eyes: one was gooseberry green, the other copper, and they shone shyly at him.

Letting Crowley go on ahead, Aziraphale let himself into her cage and approached. She stood stock still, neither advancing nor turning tail as he slowed his step towards her. When he was close enough, he knelt down and reached out one manicured hand, an offering of friendship. She inclined her head slightly to sniff it, looked up at him again, then nuzzled her nose against it: he had passed the test. Her trust was breathtaking.

When she allowed it, he gently scooped her up into his arms, entirely won over by her shy affection. “My love,” he called gently, turning to the door. “I think I’ve found–.”

Crowley came into view. In his arms he cradled a fluffy, amiable white cat. He was looking at the creature with a tenderness Aziraphale had only ever seen directed at him.

Crowley looked up and grinned crookedly. “Look at him!” he crooned.

“Oh dear,” said Aziraphale. “I suppose we’ll have to take them both.”

 

***

 

“Mercury?” suggested Crowley. They were sitting on the step, watching the two cats in the garden get used to their new surroundings. The plump white cat was dozing on the warm concrete, while the other was pawing shyly at the air, flirting with a butterfly.

“After the Roman god?” asked Aziraphale.

Crowley rolled his amber eyes. “Yeah, naturally, he’s my favourite.”

“I like it. It’s a good name.”

“What are you going to name yours?” Crowley slid a hand absently between the angel’s knees and lent his shoulder against him. “Something biblical. Let me guess.”

“Why would I choose something biblical? You chose Queen.”

“My holy text of choice,” Crowley agreed playfully. “Come on. Bathsheba? Sarah?”

“Oscar,” said Aziraphale.

“I don’t remember that book of the bible,” says Crowley.

“Thou hast the lips that should be kissed,” remarked Aziraphale, and kissed Crowley.

“Oscar Wilde? And you can’t keep doing that to shut me up.”

“It works, though,” said Aziraphale, and did it again. Crowley leaned into it, and Aziraphale tangled his fingers into that growing mass of curling hair.

Oscar pinned down the butterfly and let it flutter under her paw for a moment.

“Ah, nature red in tooth and claw,” said Crowley. “See, I can do poetry too.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “Watch,” he said.

As he spoke, she lifted her paw and let the creature fly away, remarkably unharmed.

Crowley glanced at his angel, but it wasn’t a miracle. He drew a fascinated breath.

“She’s just like you,” said Aziraphale.

“It didn’t escape my notice, Angel.” Crowley squeezed his knee.

Aziraphale shot a smirking look at Mercury. “Am I supposed to be flattered too?” he asked. The cat raised his fat fluffy head to shoot a grudging glance at them, then closed his eyes again.

“Just like you,” echoed Crowley.

Oscar leapt into the air and twisted round, swiping at another bug. She landed squirming on her back. Crowley laughed. “What was that thing about landing on her feet?” Oscar came sulking up to them and stretched out across their two laps, demanding affection. “You know,” said Crowley, scratching absently at the cat’s neck while he looked at Aziraphale, “falling was always a bad metaphor anyway.”

“Oh?” said Aziraphale tentatively.

“By the time I realised I loved you, I already loved you so much that I didn’t have anywhere further to fall.”

“My dear,” whispered Aziraphale. He sat there a moment, watching the evening light catch in the demon’s long hair. “What metaphor would you choose then?”

Crowley waved a hand. “You’re the bookish one.”

Aziraphale looked at the cat on their laps. “Sprawling, perhaps?” The cat arched her neck, requesting to be loved.


End file.
